This document discusses tea and Chinese tea culture. It describes the different types of Chinese tea, how tea drinking varies by region, the health benefits of tea, the long history and importance of tea culture in China, how tea ceremonies can be a spiritual practice, and how tea collections have cultural and monetary value. It then introduces several proposed interactive design concepts related to tea, including a cup that changes appearance based on the type of tea, an interactive teapoy to instruct people on tea ceremonies, and an interactive tree to provide tea recommendations.

1. TEA Mengyao Zhao
Hongyuan Jiang

7. Drinkable: Tea is one of the top three drinks in
the world. Chines tea includes Green Tea, Black
Tea, Oolong Tea, White Tea and Yellow Tea. All
of them have their typical tastes.
Regional: Different countries have their own
teas. The cultivation of tea needs typical re-
quirement like weather, soil and the way to cul-
tivate tea. Overseas Chinese are hardly to have
fresh Chinese teas as when they were in China.
Salutary: Tea is a healthy drinking, there is a
saying in China that :”Tea is the medicine for
thousands of diseases.” Drinking tea is what
Chinese treat as a way to keep body healthy.
Cultural: There is a long history in China about
tea and tea ceremony. It is a contribution by
southern China for food culture, it is also a con-
tribution to the food culture around the world
by China. Learning about tea history and tea
culture is an important part in learning Chinese
culture.
Spiritual: Tea ceremony itself is a way to do
spiritual practice because it needs people to be
calmed, relaxed, and enjoyed when doing tea
ceremony. It is also a good way to make friends
who share the same habits and can communi-
cate about their understandings and collections
Design Qualities
of tea.
Valuable: Tea collection is part of cultural
collections in China, people who are tea lover
always have different collections of teas. Such
collections not only have cultural meanings but
also valuable. For some of the rare tea collec-
tions, their values are equal to some precious
collections.

8. This intuitive cup
can change its ap-
pearence by reacting
with different kinds of
teas. The poetry and
the traditional Chi-
nese painting on the
surface will change
to match the tea type.
Four examples are on
the next page, they
are yellow tea, green
tea, flower tea and
black tea respectively.
Intuitive
Poetry
& Painting
Cup

10. This Interactive teapoy
is a digital interac-
tive table that instruct
people to do Chinese
tea ceremony. People
can learn and practice
how to do Chinese
tea ceremony with the
interactive instruction
shown on the teapoy.
The teapoy will have
animation instruction
on the surface under
the item which should
be operated on. Differ-
ent animation stands
for different action,
people can read the
legend on the teapoy
and follow the anima-
tion, then they will
learn the steps to do
tea ceremony.
Interactive
Teapoy

12. This Interactive tree
can provide recom-
mendation accord-
ing to the whether,
solar term, etc. Peo-
pl can store their
different kinds of
teas on the tree, and
when they want to
get some, they can
get a recommenda-
tion. For example,
when they rotate
the tea tree, the
system starts to cal-
culate the best tea
to drink according
to the specific solar
term and whether.
The recommanda-
tion tea will stop in
front of the people
and the branch will
be lighted.
Tea Recommendation
Tree